


De[void].

by IggyBlue



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5050771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IggyBlue/pseuds/IggyBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 2 to Void. Vegeta finds purpose after loss, in his infant son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	De[void].

**Author's Note:**

> A follow-on to previous one-shot Void.
> 
> Maybe not entirely necessary but it sets the scene. http://archiveofourown.org/works/4969474

When morning came, Vegeta regretted the night.

Not that what he had told Bulma was untrue, not at all. But waking to a bright new day, to the sounds of a usual morning in the building held a familiarity that the depth of night hadn't. And he had opened himself up and bared his deepest emotions to her, something he'd never done before in his life. He would have never allowed himself to be so vulnerable, had his insides not been so shattered.

Well, he had something different to stew over now, at least. For the past few months his thoughts had been circling exclusively around his race, his birthright, and Goku's death. Now he had something different to agonise over. Though its consequences were admittedly less weighty than a fallen race. Now it was his pride, not just his hope.

He lay on his side in a bed that had become far too familiar, these days. More days than not, he'd simply not get up. He no longer had anything driving him to survive another day. Some days were worse than others, and he'd barely choke down even one meal that the Brief women would insist upon him. On these days, he felt dead. 

Dead as his people.

But the morning sun would always wake him up into another unwelcome day. He blinked, gazing toward the window. The previous night he'd sat there and spilled all of his deepest grievances to Bulma, and he'd-

he'd--

actually _wept_ in her presence. She didn't make any mention of it, so he wasn't sure if she'd noticed. Maybe, maybe not, but far too close to a dangerous, teetering discomfort. So on top of his depression and grief were heaped shame and embarrassment. He squeezed his eyes shut against the rays of sun, turning away from it. His limbs felt heavy and weightless at the same time, he felt unable to move them. He looked at his body, musing over how it was supposed to move. He could control it, but he couldn't control his mind. And his mind was telling him no.

He lay there for what he felt like hours. What time he'd awoken, he didn't know - but it was probably late now. He listened to the usual noises coming from elsewhere within the compound, footsteps, distant voices. The hum and burr of different appliances and machines. The house was so alive, out there. And he felt a world away.

After some time he became aware of light but sure footsteps heading down the hall toward his room. It was the one person in the world he was least keen to see, after spilling himself emotionally before her. Like vomit on her shoes. He turned away from the door, ready to brave the sun's rays again.

A knock on the door, and without hesitation the woman opened it and poked her head in. She'd given up waiting for him to respond long ago, but this morning felt different. More self-assured. She padded into his room, sitting on the opposite side of his bed. She had the infant with her.

"Good morning, Vegeta." In times past, he would have been up hours before her, every morning. Keen to get in a long day's worth of training in the Gravity Room. She wouldn't even get a chance to greet him. "I figured you wouldn't be feeling well today." She released the young boy in her arms, allowing him to crawl forward on the bed toward his father. He paused, swatting at the mattress and the sheets curiously.

"I suppose you're wondering why I brought him here."

Nothing. He had nothing to give.

"Well," She continued, undeterred, "I found that having Trunks with me helped... helped me not think so much. About everything. Because he lives in the moment, and it's kind of contagious." The boy turned to look at her upon hearing his name. He then babbled happily, oblivious to the turmoil in his parents' hearts.

"Don't bother."

She sighed, reaching out to touch his arm. He pulled it away. "He's your son, Vegeta. He needs you."

He scoffed. If anything, the boy would be better without him.

"I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. Look," She got up, rounding the bed to kneel in front of him, the child in her grasp again. "You haven't seen him in a while, have you? He must have grown a bit. Is he bigger?"

Without protest, Vegeta's eyes fell upon his infant son. The boy looked up at him with huge blue eyes, and Vegeta was reminded of times he'd looked Bulma in the eyes. With the boy's expression set in a neutral brood, Vegeta also saw himself in the child. He saw the child he was, aboard Frieza's ship. Under his tyranny.

His eyes slipped shut. Everything reminded him of a past he desired to forget.

The woman's voice was soft as it cut the silence between them. "Here," She grabbed Vegeta's wrist and brought his hand to Trunks' head. He had no strength to resist, and soon felt the soft skin of his son beneath his own. Full of bewilderment, Trunks beheld his father's prone form. Bulma spoke again, hushed. "He loves you, I promise. _I_ love you. Come back to us. We need you." It was the closest to begging she'd ever been. Everybody else would bend to her will, one way or another, but not the Saiyan.

Vegeta didn't have it in him to form a response. Instead, he took his hand back and buried his face in it, willing her to leave. He detected the faint scent of his child, it was a smell he had never really become acquainted to. It was too surreal to process, that this was his.

The woman stroked his arm. "It's okay. Take as long as you need. Just, here's a challenge for you. I want you to try and see Trunks once every day." She cocked her head slightly. Her normal animated quirks were beginning to feel familiar again. "Yes, that means going to his room. Seriously, it will make his day. He's been asking for you. He wants to see you." She pulled back from him, sighing, a pause. "Just thought I'd visit, anyway. Do you want us to stay for a little while?"

Vegeta shook his head, still hiding behind his fingers.

"Okay. But think about my challenge, okay?" She paused, waiting for something from him, then collected Trunks and started toward the door. The young boy protested, reaching out toward his father, crying out for him.

They left. And now he felt like a failure yet again. He'd never be the father Trunks needed, the father he deserved. But, it was something to mull over. To go to a room only two doors down the hallway, and do nothing there, as he'd done nothing in his own room. That was achievable, he found himself conceding.

-

The fall of night always seemed to tear away the stifling blanket of nothingness he felt during the daytime. But to feel nothing, as opposed to this - was at least a little comfort. At least he didn't feel the fresh sting of agony in his heart, that the setting sun would leave him alone with. An agony that had him restless yet paralysed at the same time, a grief so vivid and unreal that he would wonder if he was simply dreaming.

But he felt the bed underneath him, just barely, and the cooling of evening air, and he could hear his son whimpering down the hall. He was alive, and yes, he was awake, but awake inside a nightmare far crueler than any dream his subconscious had concocted for him. And he felt that something within him had shifted when Goku died, that he somehow became far more aware of himself. That the highs and lows he'd felt before were dampened with perspective. The easy ups and downs of a relatively even terrain when there were unknown valleys to tumble headlong into.

And it felt like falling; falling constantly. Into an abyss that didn't end, or turned over on itself, into a darkness in which he couldn't orient himself.

He could never leave his own mind.

Another gentle cry from down the hall. Vegeta came back into the present at the sound, and found himself recalling Bulma's words from earlier in the day. The boy was in need, and he knew.

He could help.

Something like a spark of electricity entered his fingertips. A twitch of movement with the hope of purpose. And suddenly he was thinking about his infant son, how his skin had felt so pillowy underneath calloused fingertips. How his hair had felt soft like down, and how his eyes had reminded Vegeta of her.

Trunks whelped again, not loud, but sorrowful. Lonely and scared in his room.

He could protect him.

So with the sluggishness of an old and time-weary man, he went to sit up on his bed. Everything felt like it took forever, when he had to remember how to use his limbs again, and think over every inch of conscious movement.

But then he was sitting, and then he was standing. And then, his feet started forward toward the sound.

Trunks' expression when he entered the child's room was one of surprise which quickly melted into the self-pity he'd been indulging in before seeing his father. Arms raised, he silently asked to be picked up, to be held.

Vegeta hadn't expected the boy would be so welcoming. And he felt almost shy about the idea of touching the boy of his own volition, so he ignored the tiny arms thrust toward him and sat in the armchair a foot back, watching with curiosity the little being inside the crib.

The glum set of features the child wore, seemed almost comical. Chubby cheeks around mournful eyes, and pouting lips. Tears glistening on his face. He made some unintelligible noise as if in protest that he'd been denied.

And Vegeta's thoughts were no longer elsewhere, but on the child. An infant so unblemished by the brutalities of existence, all silken skin and absolute helplessness. There was no past or future as far as Trunks was concerned, he only knew what was happening in the here and now. And something as little as being alone this evening was bothering the child terribly, but that was okay, he was allowed to feel that. He was still just a child.

And from amongst the blackened vortex of his depression, a swirl of hope emerged.


End file.
